Devlog #2, trucking along
Posted 10/1/2024
I've been working hard on trying to get the demo for this game done soon. It's invigorating and frustrating at the same time. I've not done video game development in so damn long I'm slow at doing certain things but I also have hindsight and better understanding of programming that I can do things I couldn't do 5 years ago.
Anyway the updates for this time is that I basically have the entire room for the demo as I want it. The perspective is weird, but I think it looks good enough to continue on with it.
Jow's sprite is also updated, he now rocks on his heels rather than the balls of his feet from the other one. What I hope gets conveyed is that this man is fucking short.
The fun bit is that I finally drew the second character that appears in this demo, Salamandah. I haven't finished his idle sprite yet, but I can share his talksprite art and his sprite sketch next to the Jow sprite sketch.
Anyway, I'm on the last section of the demo now, and I need to make some "end of demo" screen, which will just be the RPGmaker game over screen but given some extra sauce. It's a tech I've used before for other game demos I've made in RPGmaker lol.
A minor digression, hunting around for plugins has me running into MZ only plugins and stuff is always labeled right so I'm never confusing things, but I really wonder how much of an upgrade MZ is from MV, but MV is a pretty old piece of software that has no issues running on modern hardware so I've not really felt a need to look into upgrading at all lol. It's on sale right now for like $40, but again. MV is perfectly servicable for my needs.
Anyway, I've alluded to the fact I'm applying to a grant with this game demo and regardless if I get the grant or not, I'm still going to continue development but it just might not be as fast. Also, the way I have the demo now I'm trying to get a better vertical slice of the game, but I'd probably remake what this is as essentially case 0/tutorial case in the final game. I've already had ideas for it, but they were far too out of scope for what I wanted to do for this stage of it. It'd involve a new character named Alphanaera. Look forward to maybe meeting them eventually.
Anyway, I'm aiming for it to be done by this weekend. I'll put up the demo publicly at the end of the month. I probably won't post about it until next month when I'll have more time to dedicate to it and think about it over the holidays.
A big take away from all I'm doing though is that game development is a lot of fun. I remember why I liked doing this so much all those years ago. I burned myself out on game development and on being in the games industry because of my experiences at Activision, but it's been about 5 years since I left that job and I can actually look at game engines again without feeling like I'm in pain or experiencing some kind of mental block. It's nuts how that happens.
I always say I have a different relationship with burnout than other people, I don't often get creatively burnt out or at least it doesn't feel like I do because I constantly need some kind of creative outlet otherwise it literally starts to wear on my mental health. It sounds so silly to say that depression starts creeping up on me when I don't have any new inspiration fueling me, even me as someone with autism that can watch all episodes of What's New Scooby Doo like every year.
With game development, since I don't really like programming, it makes the hills and valleys of development emotions much worse since it actually feels like labor. Like I always say, I can program in C# and javascript but it's not my favorite. Which is why I like RPGmaker so much as an engine since there's a healthy mix of "visual" programming methods and getting down into the weeds of the program files (all games are basically written in javascript) for me. So, it makes sense I got so burned out on working on games at work and then working on games in my free time. I'm glad that's over with.
Thanks for reading my devlog that was less about the game and more about being glad I'm not burned out on game development!